A recent Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) survey showed that nearly 80 percent of respondents would not oppose the government's plan to hold a referendum on seeking UN membership under the name Taiwan because of US pressure.
The MAC announced yesterday the results of a routine survey on public views on the present state of cross-strait relations, which included a question on the recent spat between Taiwan and the US over the referendum issue.
The survey asked: "China has put pressure on Taiwan over the referendum via the US. Do you disapprove of the referendum because the US is against it?"
The result showed that 77.8 percent of the respondents said "no," 14.2 percent answered "yes" and 8 percent didn't give an opinion.
"It shows that the majority of Taiwanese people want to express their resolute will to join the UN via a democratic and peaceful way -- a referendum process," MAC Vice Chairman Johnnason Liu (
Asked to comment on the question's statement that the US was acting under pressure from Beijing to oppose the referendum, Liu said that "we think that China was one of the reasons behind the US opposition to the referendum."
On a question of whether the country should continue to develop its diplomatic relationships with other countries even though the course will cause cross-strait tensions, 68.3 percent of the respondents said "yes," and 25.2 percent answered "no."
The percentage of "yes" answers increased from 63.7 percent while "no" answers also rose from 22.7 percent, when compared with a survey conducted four months ago.
In the survey, the public's awareness of China's hostility against the government and Taiwanese people hit a record high since the survey was first conducted in December 2004.
The result showed that 66.8 percent of the respondents believed that the Chinese authorities are unfriendly to the government, and 50.6 percent of the respondents believed that the Chinese authorities are unfriendly to Taiwanese people.
Only 22.9 percent of the respondents believed that the Chinese authorities are friendly to the government, and 40.2 percent believed they were friendly to Taiwanese people.
"People have strong feelings about China's hostility recently probably because of the understanding that China is working with the US to obstruct the referendum plan," Liu said.
The poll was conducted between Dec. 21 and Dec. 23 through a telephone survey of Taiwanese adults over the age of 20 throughout Taiwan. A total of 1,067 valid samples were collected.
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